Wednesday, September 29, 2010

TO ALL MY INTELLIGENT FRIENDS

TO ALL MY INTELLIGENT FRIENDS:

I am sharing this only with my smart friends. I could not figure it out. My first thought was wrong and I had to look at the answer.

See if you can figure out what these seven words all have in common?

1. Banana
2. Dresser
3. Grammar
4. Potato
5. Revive
6. Uneven
7. Assess

Are you peeking or have you already given up?

Give it another try....
Look at each word carefully. You'll kick yourself when you discover the answer. This is so cool.....


No, it is not that they all have at least

2 double letters....

Let me know if you found the answer - I didn't!

Answer is below!


Answer:

In all of the words listed, if you take the first letter, place it at the end of the word, and then spell the word backwards, it will be the same word. Did you figure it out? No? Then send this to more people and stump them as well. Then, you'll feel better too.


I HAD TO LOOK TOO! DIDN'T HAVE THE PATIENCE TO THINK .
My sister-n-law sent me this e-mail and it was so true and beautiful I'm sharing it with you. In these busy times, staying in touch can be difficult but not impossible, and emails can make it easier. so the next time someone forwards you an email, see it as a sign of friendship and pass on the love. Just delete all the names that were ever attached to keep everyone's mailbox clean.

HEAVEN OR HELL--AND HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?
A man and his dog were walking along a road.
The man was enjoying the scenery,
when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead.

He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years.
He wondered where the road was leading them.

After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road.

It looked like fine marble..

At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight.

When he was standing before it, he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold.

He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side.

When he was close enough, he called out, 'Excuse me, where are we?'

"This is Heaven, Sir," the man answered.

"Wow! Would you happen to have some water?" the man asked.

"Of course, sir. Come right in, and I'll have some ice water brought right up."

The man gestured, and the gate began to open. "Can my friend," gesturing toward his dog, "come in, too?" the traveler asked.

"I'm sorry, sir, but we don't accept pets."

The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and continued the way he had been going with his dog.

After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road leading through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed.

There was no fence.

As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book...

"Excuse me!" he called to the man. "Do you have any water?"

"Yeah, sure, there's a pump over there, come on in."

"How about my friend here?" the traveler gestured to the dog.

"There should be a bowl by the pump," said the man.

They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it.

The traveler filled the water bowl and took a long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog.

When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree.

"What do you call this place?" the traveler asked.

"This is Heaven," he answered.

"Well, that's confusing," the traveler said.

"The man down the road said that was Heaven, too."

"Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That's Hell."

"Doesn't it make you mad for them to use your name like that?"

"No, we're just happy that they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind."

Soooo. Now you see, sometimes, we wonder why friends keep forwarding stuff to us without writing a word. Maybe this will explain it.

When you are very busy, but still want to keep in touch, guess what you do? You forward emails.

When you have nothing to say, but still want to keep contact, you forward jokes.

When you have something to say, but don't know what, and don't know how.... you forward stuff.

A 'forward' lets you know that you are still remembered, you are still important, you are still loved, you are still cared for.

So, next time if you get a 'forward', don't think that you've been sent just another forwarded joke, but that you've been thought of today and your friend on the other end of your computer wanted to send you a smile.

You are welcome at my water bowl anytime.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

A HURRICANE PARTY FOR EARL ON OL' CAPE COD

CNN News predicted that Earl’s eye would touch the edge of Nantucket and Cape Cod would begin to feel the effects by 8:00pm. My lawn furniture and potted herbs were safely stored in the garage. Now there was nothing left to do but wait and watch the local Cape Cod televised hurricane reports. The phone interrupted the latest forecast.

“Do you and Peter want to come over for a walk on the beach with us and watch Earl come in?” my friend June asked. My first reaction was to say, “Are you out of your mind?” But, then I thought about this opportunity of a lifetime— an incredible experience—a Cape Cod Style Hurricane Party. And, June had baked a Maine Wild Blueberry pie for the occasion.

I ran down to the basement, pulled my Aqua Socks from my scuba fins and grabbed two yellow hooded boating slickers. While we drove, I wondered if perhaps I should have taken the matching snorkel set in case we were blown into the ocean by the high wind. “Don’t be ramose,” I chided myself. “People have Hurricane Parties all the time and live to tell about them.”“Didn’t the news say this was a level 4 hurricane,” I asked my husband.

“Yeah, This is gonna be wicked pisser!” Peter answered. He was a native Bostonian. Nor’easters, the counter clockwise swirling Typhoons that Stephen King wrote about, didn’t even scare him.

“Yeah, it’ll be fun.” I whispered with less enthusiasm.

“Here are our travelers,” June giggled handing us drinks at the door for the short walk to the beach. “They’re virgin *Dark’n Stormys—perfect for the occasion.” Our drinks were non-alcoholic organic Ginger Beer—without the dark rum. We donned our slickers, pulled up our hoods, and tied them over the zippers for protection against the growing wind, then headed for the SUVs parked along Yellow Jacket Beach. Their lights shined toward the oncoming storm and reflected off the white caps. It was definitely a dark and stormy night. Then we turned and headed toward a different set of lights illuminating Red Jacket Beach. The air was hot and balmy. Despite wearing shorts, I began to perspire in my jacket.

Local Channel 5 news crews filmed the oncoming storm from their ocean view rooms. We raised our glasses in a salute. The crew waved back. Then they cut the lights and packed up their equipment to leave. “We’ll be on the news tonight,” June said. “Too bad we won’t recognize ourselves in all this garb.” The intermittent rain bouncing off our jackets sounded like tiny drum rolls and felt more like being spit on by the god Poseidon than pelted on by a storm.

We had to turn our backs to the wind to drink and speak. Facing it felt like sticking my head out of a car window traveling at sixty miles per hour. I couldn’t breathe. But, the swirling powder-fine white sand gave us no reprieve. It grated against my teeth whenever I smiled and felt like a swarm of mosquitoes against my legs. We continued our trek toward the far end of the beach. Another row of motorists watched the storm from the shelter of their cars while a group of tourists danced in the surf.

We sat on a bench and watched seagulls fly against the wind. “Why are those silly birds flying rather than hunkering down somewhere?” I said June. “Maybe they are wondering why we silly humans are sitting on this bench rather than hunkering down inside the Inn.” She answered. We drank to that. As the waves broke closer to the shoreline, my Dark’n Stormy had waves breaking on its surface—a sure sign that it was time to leave.

We headed for the Red Jacket Bar. The CNN crew entered for a late bite and told us about their injuries incurred while filming in Bosnia. “A mortar landed beside our truck and I needed 105 stitches. I don’t have full mobility in my arm yet, but, oh well. We’re heading back to NY, now. Not much of a storm to capture on film.”

“ Let’s go back to my place and have some pie,” June said. We all jumped up, zipped up and headed for home.

By the time we ate our pie, Earl had downgraded to a Tropical Storm and was heading out to sea toward Nova Scotia. Thank goodness my first hurricane party became the Hurricane That Didn’t Party on Ol’ Cape Cod. We celebrated with another piece of pie and a real *Dark’n Stormy.

*Dark 'n Stormy is the unofficial national drink of Bermuda. Gosling owns the trademark on the actual recipe:

2 oz Gosling's® Black Seal rum
4 oz ginger beer

Serve over ice with fresh lime.